Yahoo Finance 'Office 365 for money' startup Soldo raises $61 million
A financial technology startup that aims to be the “Office 365 for money” has raised $61 million.
Soldo, which operates in the UK, Ireland, and Italy, raised the money from US venture capital firm Battery Ventures, European fund Dawn Capital, and top European VC Accel. The “Series B” funding takes Soldo’s total financing to $82 million.
Soldo, founded in 2015, is an spend management platform that helps companies manage their spending across the business.
“There are companies like Square, Adyen, and Stripe who manage payments going into the company,” Soldo founder and CEO Carlo Gualandri told Yahoo Finance UK. “At the same time the company is spending money to exist. Payments also exist, outbound payments, in the context of the company.”
Gualandri likened Soldo to “Office 365 for money.” The platform offers a single account where managers can map an entire organisation, allocate money, and set rules on how much people can spend and where.
“I could have a budget of £1,000 and I could be restricted to spend £100 a week but online, only in specific countries, and only with specific merchants,” Gualandri said.
Soldo works with over 30,000 businesses including Monzo, Sony, and Endamol Shine, the TV production company behind shows like Peaky Blinders and Deal or No Deal. It currently processes over €20 million worth of business spending over its platform each month.
Gualandri said the money raised would be spent on “in a nutshell, two things: sales and product.” Soldo plans to move into new markets across Europe and “continue to innovate,” he said. The London-headquartered business currently employs around 100 people and Gualandri estimated the headcount would double in the next year.
Gualandri declined to say how much Soldo was valued at in the funding round but said it was a couple of hundred million.
“I consider that a very big challenge for us,” he said. “Raising a lot of money is not a cool thing, getting a big number is not cool. The only thing that matters is getting a return for your investors.”
Gualandri said there were around 5 million companies above sole trader level in Soldo’s target markets, representing around 80 million employees.
“The definition of the target market is enormous,” he said. “That’s why we thought it made sense to raise the money.”
Itzik Parnafes, a general partner at Battery Ventures, said in a statement: “With more employees now empowered to incur business expenses, and more expense-management processes moving to the cloud, today’s corporate-expense programs must adapt to keep up—in Europe as well as the U.S..”
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Oscar Williams-Grut covers banking, fintech, and finance for Yahoo Finance UK. Follow him on Twitter at @OscarWGrut.
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